Today should be my unlucky day. I saw two disappointing new advertising campaigns. So I’ll be defensive a bit. I still believe that -as advertising industry- we can be authentic and do some good with our advertising money. I think we are mature enough to say no to bad briefs, bad projects, bad products and we can help others to do better. Of course at the end of the day bad advertising has negative impact only on the brand; neither the agency not its ‘client’, I know that. I know that we do not shame the creatives and agencies do horrible job but accommodate each other, because we’re simply on the same boat. But come on! What are these:
Ford being openly jealous of Apple, Google and Tesla?! How come the brand that created a whole new progressive world, who defined mass production, can start to talk like an abuelo and rant about the new-generation companies? This may be the most conservative campaign that Ford ever created. What are you even trying to say? Are you against the pretenders / show offs or are you against any sort of inspirational leadership? Are you against heroes? Stories? Dreams? What is wrong with you W+K? How come you both believe in Power of imagination and be against it?
This is not advertising, it is just an expensive rant from a company that is going through its midlife crises. Just like a grandpa who bought a new Mustang to grab attention from the young ladies who ignore him at the pub.
In theory, this campaign is supposed to function as a manifestation of Ford’s vision and its beliefs and it demonstrates a Challenger attitude – which usually is not used by Leaders… I have no idea why Ford thinks that it is a small brand to rebel against bigger players… But I recommend them to think their brand as a classic, but not accept to be outdated.
The other one is from USA as well. Burger King is one of my favourite brands in terms of communication sstrategies. Thanks to Buzzman, they do great great work in Europe and they totally found their way out of the Health talks with the power of well engineered humour. USA team was trying to follow the same foot steps and they were trying to be bold. They especially like to use Halloween as a special occasion, it started with a very nice and smart idea from David in 2016. David – as always- did a wonderful prank for BK and it generated lots of buzz. Then Burger King USA tried to repeat the same success with Lola in 2017, and as everybody knows – no-one laughs at the same joke twice. And on top, Buzzman did better for the same occasion at the same time with Zombie Whoppers. It is very hard for me to understand why the same brand creates two campaigns for the same media and for the similar audience, but I guess they’d know better. Again, we don’t know if there were synergies and learning over there but this year they were back to David…. And ta ta, this is what they came up with:
Seriously? This is how you read and learn from your own good work? As usual David delivered a very nice production and they will achieve after instant fame with this content and with their impressive network power. And of course this content will work – people will watch this since it is relevant in terms of the Halloween spirit. And I am sure that they dared the Client to invest in an ad that promise to disrupt marketing conventions and be a Best Practice, right? So it will prove that we should not blindly believe in researched because they were claiming that brands better be associated with positives at all times… Bravo, good for you. I am sure that your PR bulletins are already ready…. Don’t get me wrong this content is to be applauded, it is very smart and contraversial. It is -well deserved- success story to promote David and their brilliance, but what is in it for Burger King?
Burger King is neither an unknown brand that needs some buzz power to be seen nor it is short in terms of branded content. Why cannot re-use the Zombie Whopper idea but go after this?
I don’t know, I hope Buzzman has been working on something more meaningful.
UPDATE Oct18: This is how they decide at Burger King, I got my answer